Housing

HUD: $47 Million in Housing Counseling Grants Awarded

Funding intended to help families find and keep their homes The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today awarded $47 million in housing counseling grants to help approximately 1 million households find housing, make more informed housing choices, or keep their current homes. See list of all counseling agencies awarded funding today. “HUD-approved…

HUD: Chicago’s Historic Rosenwald Courts Apartments Earns 2018 HUD Secretary Award

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) today announced Chicago’s Rosenwald Courts Apartments, once home to boxer Joe Louis, and Olympian Jesse Owens, as the recipient of the 2018 ACHP/HUD Secretary’s Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation. This annual award recognizes developers, organizations, and agencies…

HUD: VA and HUD Secretaries Announce Housing Initiatives to Support Homeless Veterans

HUD-VASH vouchers to provide housing for over 4,000 veterans U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Robert Wilkie today joined together at the VA Community Resource and Referral Center to announce $35 million in grants to combat veteran homelessness. The funding will be provided…

HUD: $6.7 Million in Research Grants Awarded to Reduce Lead and Other Housing-Related Health Hazards

Funding to improve methods to identify and control key residential hazards WASHINGTON – To help protect children and seniors from exposure to lead and other home health hazards, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today awarded $6.7 million to seven universities and public health organizations to improve methods for identifying and controlling…

HUD: FHA to Require Second Appraisal for Certain Reverse Mortgages

New policy designed to reduce ‘appraisal inflation’ WASHINGTON – The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) today announced that it will begin requiring lenders originating new Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs), commonly referred to as reverse mortgages, to provide a second property appraisal under certain circumstances. FHA is instructing lenders to provide a second independent property appraisal…

HUD: Department and U.S. Virgin Islands Sign $243 Million Disaster Recovery Grant Agreement

Action paves the path to repair housing, businesses and infrastructure WASHINGTON – U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Deputy Secretary Pamela Hughes Patenaude and the U.S. Virgin Island’s Governor Kenneth Mapp today announced the formal execution of a $243 million grant agreement to help citizens in the U.S. Virgin Islands to recover from…

FHFA: Index Shows Mortgage Rates Increased in August 2018

Nationally, interest rates on conventional purchase-money mortgages increased from July to August, according to several indices of new mortgage contracts. The National Average Contract Mortgage Rate for the Purchase of Previously Occupied Homes by Combined Lenders Index was 4.63 percent for loans closed in late August, up 3 basis points from 4.60 percent in July….

HUD and Census Bureau: New Residential Sales Report for August 2018

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Census Bureau jointly announced the following new residential sales statistics for August 2018: New Home Sales Sales of new single-family houses in August 2018 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 629,000. This is 3.5 percent (±13.7 percent)* above the revised July…

FHFA: Foreclosure Preventions Near 4.2 Million in FHFA’s Second Quarter 2018 Report

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today released its second quarter 2018 Foreclosure Prevention Report,which shows that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) completed 70,945 foreclosure prevention actions in the second quarter of 2018, bringing the total number of foreclosure prevention actions to 4,179,581 since September 2008.  The report also shows that 25 percent…

FHA: House Price Index Up 0.2 Percent in July 2018

U.S. house prices rose in July, up 0.2 percent from the previous month, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) seasonally adjusted monthly House Price Index (HPI).  The previously reported 0.2 percent increase in June was revised upward to 0.3 percent. The FHFA monthly HPI is calculated using home sales price information from mortgages…